Third Time's the Charm
by Fudgyokra
Summary: Human AU in which Mordecai and CJ are best friends who hang out at the local sandwich shop and pine over cute servers Rigby and Margaret.


**Third Time's the Charm**

**A/N:** Featuring Mordecai/Rigby and Margaret/CJ. Fun fact: I saved the idea for this in my documents late one night and found it again a week later. Apparently I had titled it "Big Gay AU" in all caps, lol.

* * *

**Monday.**

The Coffee Shop was as cozy as ever, lit with yellow bulbs in bell-shaped shades and smelling of deli meat from the kitchen to the door. As usual, CJ and Mordecai occupied the front table of the middle row during their midday break, patiently waiting for the people they wished to see. Though they were supposed to be in the lunch rush, only two tables besides theirs were filled, so they didn't exactly see the "rush" as a hindrance to chatting with the servers they sought when they did appear.

CJ in particular had a few choice words in mind. She was in the midst of affirming her plan to her best friend, who listened with his "yeah, whatever" expression set comfortably on his face. It was practically muscle memory by this point.

"I'm gonna do it this time for sure," the girl said nonchalantly. "See, the difference between me and you is that I'm totally not scared to ask _my_ crush out."

"Psh, I'm not scared." Mordecai held his hands up as if in defense. "I'm just waiting for the right moment."

"Which will be never."

The man replied indignantly, "Hey! I'm serious! You haven't exactly set the shining example for getting a date, CJ."

She crossed her arms and he watched with interest as her blond brows rose practically into her hairline. "Well, watch and learn, 'cause here they come."

Mordecai's heart jumped in his effort to look natural. "Hey, Rigby," he greeted as coolly as he could manage. This wasn't exactly an impressive feat.

"Heyyy Margaret," CJ said. They were involved in conversation within seconds, leaving Mordecai to subconsciously wonder where his friend got her impressive social skills even after he'd turned his attention to Rigby.

"So, what's up?" he asked.

Rigby shrugged. "Ah, y'know, stuck at work and all that junk."

"I know the feeling." Mordecai laughed a little awkwardly. "I mean, I'm on break right now, but… Well, you know what I meant." He laughed even more awkwardly. Despite his brief floundering, Rigby smiled.

"I would kill to be on break right now, dude." His smile transitioned into an annoyed expression. "But _no_, my break has to be _after _normal people lunch time." He sighed, glanced at his coworker chatting it up, and rolled his eyes. "Whaddya want? The usual?"

"Yeah, definitely." Mordecai's eyes followed the path his waiter's had taken, even if he hadn't quite meant for them to. CJ appeared to be at the tail end of an interesting story, if her redheaded companion's surprised intrigue had anything to say.

"Oh my god!" said redhead exclaimed, holding her notepad in front of her mouth in her apparent shock. "That's crazy!"

"I know, right?" CJ caught Mordecai's stare and cleared her throat. "Hey, uh, Margaret?"

"Yeah?" Margaret tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled brightly.

The blonde smiled back, almost dazedly. "I've been kinda waiting to mention this, but hey, do you think—"

Rigby looked poised to interrupt before someone from the table to their right beat him to it. "Babe!" a deep voice called. "How long 'til the food's ready?"

The quartet turned their attention to the man who'd called—a rather muscular individual in a Van Halen tee that was stretched too tightly across his chest—and all of them seemed to realize at once that he was talking to Margaret.

"Oh, sorry, Leo! I was just chatting with a friend." She blew him a kiss, which made the others at his table hoot. When she turned back to CJ, the blonde looked unabashedly bitter with her red face and pursed lips. If Margaret noticed, she didn't comment. Instead she returned to waitress mode, pen poised above the notepad on which her eyes were trained. "Sorry 'bout that. My boyfriend is a little impatient. What did you want?"

CJ's mouth curled into a small frown. "The usual, please."

"All righty! It'll only be a minute." She looked at Rigby, who was scribbling things on his pad that couldn't possibly have been Mordecai's order. "Rigby," she said in an admonishing tone, complete with hands on hips, "Are you even working?"

"I'm takin' a break!" he whined. "Relax."

She shook her head before returning to the kitchen, leaving her less diligent coworker behind to doodle at their regulars' table.

CJ sighed and propped her head up on her hand in an uncharacteristic display of defeat. She looked sideways at Mordecai. Her stormy gray eyes said everything, but she still tried to play her disappointment off with a playful eyebrow wiggle and a meaningful glance at Rigby.

He shrugged, which garnered an "are-you-kidding-me" look that he returned with a mouthed, "You okay?" She looked away.

"Hey, Rigby?"

The brunette perked up when Mordecai addressed him. "Yeah?"

Mordecai swallowed hard at the inviting glimmer in his eyes but managed a perfectly civil smile while he said, "Hey, can we get our stuff to go?"

**Tuesday.**

It rained. Quickly and without warning, the choked-up skies let loose the moment the sun rose. By the time the duo returned to the Coffee Shop it had cleared up, but it was still drizzly and the sky was bone gray.

Mordecai liked to joke that CJ's mood affected the weather, which usually made her laugh but today did nothing. They went inside, where even the yellow lights in their shades seemed less cheerful. The dreary atmosphere was cemented by the silent presence of the only other patron there besides themselves, a smallish, middle-aged man reading a book in the corner.

"This place is really empty today, huh?" Mordecai said unnecessarily. When CJ went the whole day without speaking, he tended to fill the extra spaces of silence with idle comments that acted as distractions, lest she think too hard about whatever had upset her and blow up about it.

As he expected, she didn't answer.

They sat in their usual spot, at which Rigby arrived in a matter of seconds, sporting his messy apron with a Gameboy shoved in the front pocket.

"Hey!" the single customer exclaimed. "I was here before them and you didn't take my order yet!"

Rigby waved a hand at him. "Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute."

The customer grumbled but was too involved with his book to bother leaving.

"I've been bored outta my mind all day. Man, I'm glad you guys are here," the waiter said. "Margaret isn't even here," he added as an afterthought, "so I can't even leave!"

"Oh, man," Mordecai replied, his voice a weird mix of sympathetic and wary of CJ's possible outburst at the mention of the redhead's name. "That sucks."

"Yeah, she just dumped her boyfriend or whatever."

The blonde jerked her head upward to give him a quizzical look. "She…broke up with him? Van Halen t-shirt guy?"

"Yeah! He was a jerk, anyway."

"Haha, yeah, I bet," Mordecai put in, perhaps a little too animatedly. "But now she doesn't have to deal with him anymore, right?"

"Oh, wow," CJ said. "Crazy."

"Eh, not really." Rigby leaned his elbows on their table. "She has a new boyfriend every week. I think she's tryna make someone jealous."

"Hm…" the taller male nodded. "I bet someone is."

CJ kicked him underneath the table.

"Who, you?" Rigby asked. Mordecai answered quickly to the negative and Rigby continued on to question two, which was, "Not into redheads, huh? Me neither."

The woman among them snorted. "Nah, dude, he's more recently been into brunettes." At this, her friend gave her a mortified look. She pretended not to notice.

"Cool, cool." Rigby kept clicking his pen. "I'm into dark hair, too." Mordecai was beginning to suspect that their conversation was one big euphemism, and if CJ's barrage of kicks to his ankle were anything to go by, so did she.

This could be his shot! He mentally prepared himself to ask the waiter out, opened his mouth to speak, and then immediately closed it again. His nerves burned out all at once. "Could I, uh, get a coffee?" he asked, instead.

CJ pressed her palm to her face. Rigby looked ready to do the same. "Sure, dude. What about you?" he directed this last part at the blonde.

"Same, please. I'm gonna need it."

Rigby meandered more than deliberately walked away from the table to fill their order. The man whose order he still hadn't taken grumbled some more in his corner.

Mordecai didn't have to look to know that his friend was giving him the why-did-you-blow-it face. "He could've just been talking about hair!" he said in response to an argument she hadn't yet begun.

"Quit pullin' a Mordecai. Relax. Rigby's a chill dude, he'll probably like you."

"What if he's not into guys?"

"Have you seen his earring? He's definitely into guys."

"What're you talking about?" He glanced up to make sure Rigby wasn't coming back yet, then furrowed his brows at CJ. "Are you talking about the right versus left side thing? Because that's bull."

"He pierced the gay ear!"

"_The gay ear_." Mordecai couldn't contain his laughter.

To his relief, CJ laughed along. "I'm serious!"

"That's not how it works."

When Rigby came back to the table with a coffee in each hand, Mordecai could see that CJ was right about the piercing: it was just a tiny diamond in his right ear, hardly noticeable. "Where'd you get that?" he asked, trying to sound offhanded and coming off more probing. He fought to keep from wincing. "The earring, I mean."

"Why? You want one?" Rigby asked before he sat the green mugs in front of them. His hand lingered on Mordecai's cup for a second while he awaited the answer.

"Uhhh…"

CJ jumped in with, "That depends on who's asking." She smiled innocently while she ignored her friend's weary, judgmental look.

Rigby blinked. "Huh?"

"I'm thinking about getting one, yeah," was Mordecai's quick recovery. It was a lie, but it got the conversation going again.

"He's not sure if he has a good enough reason to." CJ made a bridge with her fingers and laid her chin atop it. "Why'd you get yours?"

Rigby snorted. "I got mine 'cause it's a gay symbol or whatever." He clicked his tongue.

CJ shot a victorious grin at Mordecai as she answered the waiter with, "That's cool."

"Still want one?" Rigby questioned, surveying him with interest.

This had to be a test. Chance number two, Mordecai thought, smiling nervously. He would prove to CJ that he was brave enough to do this. "Ah…" _Just say yes! _his brain told him. "You know…I'll think about it."

**Wednesday.**

When break time rolled around at one, CJ was animated. The dreary weather had cleared (conveniently, Mordecai said, and was met with a playful slap on the shoulder), Benson had only yelled at them once this morning, and things felt promising overall.

"Third time's the charm," she said cheerily. "Today will be the day, dude. I can feel it."

"What makes you so sure? Didn't Rigby say she has a new boyfriend, like, every week?"

"Hasn't been a week yet," CJ answered flatly with a dramatic eye roll. "But remember, he said that she was trying to make someone jealous."

"He _thought _so."

"It's still worth a shot, you pessimist. I'm going for it."

"Sure, sure."

"Hey, _your _crush has been flirting with you since day one—"

"No he hasn't. You're deluded."

"—_And _he flat-out told you yesterday that he was gay. And you _still _couldn't ask him out." CJ crossed her arms as a case-in-point gesture and smirked when Mordecai only mumbled.

"Whatever," he said under his breath, a sign of grudging admittance.

The shop, they noticed, was livelier than usual today. When they entered the building, every table was filled except theirs—a tidy plastic beacon in the sea of customers. They sat, CJ with her feet drawn up on the bar underneath her stool and Mordecai with his legs crossed at the ankle.

"Business as usual, huh?" CJ joked.

Mordecai scoffed. "Yeah, no kidding."

Margaret made it to their table about five minutes later, looking frazzled with her messy bun and tired eyes. "Hi guys! Glad you're here, 'cause I don't think I could've saved that table much longer."

"You saved us a table?" CJ asked with a pleased smile.

"Of course I did! I like you guys too much to leave you hanging." Margaret laughed.

The musical sound practically glued the other girl's smile in place. "That's sweet of you."

To Mordecai's surprise, Margaret bit her lip, though she quickly hid it with her notepad until she sobered. "It was nothing, really." Her eyes darted over her shoulder for a second, and her overwhelmed expression returned. "I can't really talk now, though. We're packed 'cause some concert at the beach just ended."

The two of them nodded in understanding.

"But hey…" The redhead stuck her pencil behind her ear and held her notepad to her chest. "If you wanted to hang out later…" CJ tried not to look overly excited while Margaret reached for something in her apron pocket.

Before she retrieved whatever it was she was looking for, Rigby approached the table and tapped insistently on her arm. "Hey! What gives? We got, like, eight tables complaining about the wait."

Margaret sighed and CJ gave the brunette a death glare that he didn't see, due to the fact he had his gaze focused elsewhere. "Hey, Mordecai," he greeted.

"Hey, dude," the taller male shifted his attention from CJ to Rigby. "What's up?"

"Nothin' much."

"How about your job?" Margaret asked with a challenging smile. "I imagine that has to be pretty overwhelming now, right? I mean, it would be if you were actually doing it."

CJ whooped and extended a hand for Margaret to high five, which she did.

"What about you? You're not doing anything right now," Rigby returned coolly. He leaned on the table and stuck his tongue out at her.

"We talked about this, Rigby," Margaret said sternly.

Rigby blinked his eyes in an innocent gesture. "Talked about what?"

"You know."

The two guests didn't entirely understand what was going on.

Luckily for them, Margaret cut the conversation with her coworker off there and regarded CJ again. She brandished a pair of tickets from her apron pocket and flashed them to the table.

"No fair!" Rigby whined. "You were supposed to ask first."

"We never said that," Margaret replied. She smiled again at CJ. "Did you wanna see a movie with me this Friday?"

Mordecai shot a startled look first at Margaret, then at Rigby, who had his arms crossed and his eyes toward the ceiling.

The blonde looked thrilled. "Wow, I, uh… Yeah. Sure thing, Margaret."

"Great, so I'll see you at seven, okay?" The waitress leaned over the table to hand the other girl a ticket, which Rigby commented was completely unnecessary. He was ignored. "I gotta go for now, but I'll be sure to text you."

"All right!" CJ answered.

Margaret tucked the remaining ticket in her pocket. "I'm looking forward to it." A wink was thrown in the blonde's direction before the waitress departed.

Rigby mumbled something to himself and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. Without saying a word or making eye contact, he slid a ticket out and offered it to Mordecai.

"Is this… Are you…?" The man took the ticket and glanced at CJ, who was too involved in staring at her own to notice his confusion.

"We had a bet," Rigby explained, looking a little embarrassed when he finally met Mordecai's eyes. "I told her I sort of…" He cleared his throat and tried to look casual. "Y'know, liked you and all. And she was like 'OMG I totally dig CJ she's so hot'." Here, he made a vague gesture with his hands and CJ, who apparently _had_ been listening, snickered. "So we bet a few drinks at Wing Kingdom on who would ask who out first," Rigby finished in a rush.

"Oh," was all Mordecai could manage in his stupor.

"And you lost," CJ added helpfully.

Rigby muttered something about Margaret being too competitive before he looked up at Mordecai again. "So, uh… Wanna go out this Friday?"

Mordecai nodded dumbly, and CJ patted him on the back. "Looks like we both lost our bet, then."

"Your bet?" Rigby asked.

"We sort of had the same thing going on. We didn't _actually _bet, but…" CJ shrugged. "This was a pleasant turn of events, anyway."

Rigby's mouth curled into a smile. "Ooooh, you have a crush on meeeee," he sing-songed, prodding the taller man's arm with the eraser end of his pencil.

"Dude, shut up." Even as he said it, Mordecai couldn't quit beaming.

"I'll see you Friday." The brunette stepped away from the table looking rather proud of himself. "You too, CJ."

She waved him off as he left, and the moment she made eye contact with Mordecai, he blurted, Oh my god," in an awestruck tone. "We got dates."

"You act like that's a miracle," she replied with a snort. Mordecai smiled at his ticket again and C added, "Well maybe for you it is." Mordecai elbowed her.

"What_ever_."

"I told you that today would be the day."

"This was pure luck."

CJ shrugged. "Hey, man, whatever it was, it worked."

Mordecai conceded with a hum and a dazed, "You're right."

With a cheeky grin, CJ said, "When am I ever anything but?"


End file.
